Nations Hope Veil Lifts From Libya’s History of Terrorism

LONDON — Television footage of the only man convicted in the Lockerbie bombing lying in bed, purportedly comatose with advanced prostate cancer at his Tripoli home, has provided a focal point for a question asked with new urgency in places far from Libya: With Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government in ruins, what reckoning is likely for the terrorist bombings that were once a signature of the former Libyan leader’s war with the Western world?

The issues range far beyond the bombing in 1988 that killed 259 people aboard Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, as well as 11 people on the ground, though many questions remain about who, including Colonel Qaddafi himself, may have ordered it.

Two-thirds of the Lockerbie victims were Americans, and their families have petitioned for years for an accounting, including prosecutions, for those in the Libyan chain of command who knew of the plans for the Pan Am attack, of which Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was convicted in a Scottish court....